Theoretically speaking, my competition could match my site in each of these categories. For example, if I build a high-quality link, my competition can do the same. If I optimize my title tags, H1 tags, content, and other on-page elements, then my competition can essentially do the same.

In essence, they can match me link-for-link, quality content for quality content, title tag for title tag and everything else I am doing to ensure they rank just as good, if not better than I do.

However, one thing they cannot do is match the domain name of my site. Having a great domain name is an exception, and Google and other search engines place a lot of emphasis on keyword rich domains.

This is where Google and others have shown some biases toward websites. How is it that search engines are biased? Unfortunately, search engines use highly complex algorithms to find and display the results you and I see, and with any computer-run system, you can find a way to manipulate it.

For example, look at the search results for “online universities,” a keyword in a known ultra-competitive industry.

The first three results are for www.onlineuniversities.com followed by a mix of .com and .edu websites. This might look good on the surface, but looking deeper into why these sites are ranking revealed some interesting results. I only looked at .edu sites to get an idea of why they are not ranking in the top spots since it would be natural to think an .edu should show up before a .com.

Onlineuniversities.com has a small amount of Open Site Explorer and Google links compared to the rest of the competition for this term. In addition to having a lot fewer back-links, there is a huge discrepancy between their number of .edu and .gov links compared with the competition.

So how is it that Onlineuniversities.com is out ranking four .edu sites, which are highly relevant to the search term “online universities”?

I attribute a lot of this to the domain name. There are other reasons keyword domains and SEO go hand in hand such as:

• Credibility – A keyword specific domain looks more trustworthy to search engines and to individuals linking to the site.  If someone has a business selling widgets and their website domain is widgets.com, search engines and individuals have a good idea what the purpose of the site is.
• Anchor text links – External links to a keyword domain include that specific keyword in the link because that is the company name. This is a great way to get keyword anchor text links from directories like Yahoo, Business.com, and Best of the Web. These directories don’t allow keywords to be used in the title when submitting a listing. They only want the business name however; if the name of your business online is keyword rich there is a good chance you will get listed in these types of directories.
• User-friendly – Keyword domain names are easier to remember then other domains. From a user perspective, they are more likely to remember widgets.com then reverbnation.com which is actually a site that shows up for the term widgets.

Individuals in the SEO industry would argue that Google is placing less emphasis on keyword rich domains, but I feel like they still place a fair amount of weight on these types of domains. This is a great strategy to incorporate with your SEO efforts and one that creates a core competency for a business. In every niche, you will find keyword rich domains and that is why businesses are looking to use a keyword domain to their advantage.

Since my last post was about using the best keyword research tools, I thought I would go into more detail about one of my favorite keyword research tools, Market Samurai, and how you can bury your competition by using it. Market Samurai uses Google’s API as its main source of keyword data, but it also does some pretty unique things while also adding some incredibly useful features.

Like most keyword tools you start with your seed keyword and it will pull up similar keywords along with their data. As the snapshot below illustrates, I’ve done a search for “snowboards.” In Utah, we’re gearing up for snowboard season. And as you can see there is a whole host of custom filters that make finding the right keyword super easy.

As you can see, the first section of filters is specifically for organic search. There are a number of ways we can refine our search. (For the sake of this post I will highlight a few key functions.)

You can uncheck Organic to not filter by any organic search parameters.

Total search is precisely what you might think it is, but Market Samurai displays daily search volume, not monthly search volume. You can select the minimum or maximum search volume as a filter.

SEO Traffic filter is extremely useful for gauging the SEO value of a keyword. Market Samurai displays the potential daily clicks you would obtain for showing up first in Google. This is calculated by assuming that around 40% of users click on the #1 ranking in Google and so 40% of the total click volume is calculated accordingly.

The next section is dedicated to Adwords. This makes finding potential profitable keywords really simple. Market Samurai projects Adwords Traffic (AWT), Adwords CTR (AWCTR), and Adwords CPC (AWCPC). AWT estimates the total daily clicks the advertiser might receive from being in the top spot. AWCTR is the projected click-through rate for a decent ad. AWCPC shows you what the top advertiser pays for being there.

So, not only can you perform your keyword research, but you are able to find potential PPC keywords as well. After looking at trends and finding some possible PPC campaigns you can also see the commerciality or seasonality of keywords easily.

Adwords Value (AWV) is an arbitrary number that projects potential income a site could bring in per day with that keyword.

With the filters selected and one click, your data is updated and can preview the information displayed in a nicely organized table.  For example:

SEO Competition

Once the keyword research is done and you’ve selected your bread and butter keyword, it’s time to figure out if that keyword is viable for SEO. That means you legally spy on your competition.

Just click on the SEO COMPETITION feature and within seconds you can see the top 10 competitors for the keyword you selected.

This is a HUGE time saver. You can quickly check back-links in Yahoo Site Explorer, see if they are indexed in major directories, the domain age, page rank, keywords in title, keywords in URL, keywords in description, keywords in h1 tag and cache date.

This is an easy way to find the lowest hanging fruit in your marketplace. Finding keywords with less competition is quick and painless.

With keyword research done and a quick look at the competition, why not check your website rankings for some or all of your keywords? From the keyword research conducted, you can now go down the list and check the boxes of some or all of the keywords you want to check rankings for. When you are finished checking your keywords, select the drop down box at the bottom. From there you can select “Add to Rank Tracker” and Market Samurai will transfer your keywords to the rank tracker.

Rank Checker

After transferring your keywords into the rank tracker, you can add the URL you are working with and run a quick report. Preview an example of the report below.

I could keep going on with all of the features, but I think you get the point. Market Samurai is a great tool to find targeted keywords and hidden niches. You’ll spend less time doing research and more time making money. Isn’t that what we all want? You can see below, there are a lot more options I could have discussed such as monetization, finding content, publishing content and even promotion.

Market Samurai is one of my favorite tools that I use every day. Start using it and you’ll instantly save time and you might even make a little extra cash this year.

Aaah, Google AdWords. This is probably one of the more popular tools out there, and all of you SEO experts are familiar with how it works, or at least should be. So what other tools are useful for keyword research?

Let’s take a look at a few.

Google’s SK tool works really well for generating niche keyword ideas. When you get to the SK tool page, click on the link, “Or see top keywords across all categories.”

Now it will display a list of categories for this search. From there, you can search through a various categories such as health, food, computers, travel & tourism, and more.

Let’s click on Sports & Fitness. Now, if I click on the Boating & Water Recreation, it will pull up a list of ideas and corresponding monthly search volume.

From here, you can find some great ideas for niche marketing. This tool can be useful for finding long-tail keyword ideas as well. To do this, simply do a search for a keyword (such as ski boats) and it will generate a list of long-tail keyword suggestions.

Additional Free tools for keyword research include:

• Wordtracker – Can help you compile associated keywords.  A more robust, paid version is also available.
• Keyword Discovery – Free version of the keyword research tool from Trellian.
• Spacky.com- Generates a monthly search volume for a given keyword.
• Seo Book Keyword Research- As stated on their site, “The Coolest Keyword Research Tool Today!”
• Keyword Spy- A site that allows you to spy on your competition and find their keywords.

Paid Subscription Tools

If you’re looking for added features, some good tools to check out:

• Spyfu.com- This is a great way to spy on the competition. They provide a Keyword Smart Search generates keyword ideas based on what the competition is doing. You can use some of their basic tools by creating an account, but in order to get the most out of it, you have to subscribe for a membership. 
• KeyCompete.com- KeyCompete is a keyword research tool that recognizes the keywords your competitors use in their pay-per-click campaigns and also reveals the competition that is bidding on your keywords.
• Wordze.com- Facilitates finding niche markets and locates market growth.
• Adgooroo.com- Helps you to get more traffic by finding traffic opportunities, PPC monitoring, and more.
• Nichebot.com- According to their ad, it’s “keyword research on steroids.”

The best tool that I am utilizing is Market Samurai. This tool is amazing! Really. I’ve been using it for the past month or so, and it makes keyword research so simple. In addition to keyword research, it provides tools like a rank tracker, finding content, and analyzing the competition. If you don’t want to pay for it right away you can download a free trial version for 12 days.

Have you found other tools useful when conducting keyword research? If so, I would love to hear about them.

Back in the early 2000’s, prior to the infestation of blogs, the web was full of guest books. Guest books gave owners interaction with those that visited their site by allowing visitors the opportunity to post a message and other information. Spammers soon realized the guest books weren’t being monitored, and began placing links in order to generate traffic to their sites. This became such a problem that Google and other search engines began looking for a solution. Shortly after guest books appeared, blogs arrived which brings us to where we are today. Unfortunately, the spam tactics on guest books are now being used on blogs. I did a search for scuba diving comments and found this example:

The anchor text link goes to a weight loss website. With spammers inundating blogs, similar to the example above, it was even more important for search engines to find a solution. Back in 2005, Google introduced their Nofollow attribute to the world of blogging in order to combat spam. The nofollow tag has been added to numerous social media sites such as Blogger, WordPress, Modblog, Technorati, and others in an attempt to reduce spam. Now comments posted on these and other sites look like:

Visit my <a href="http://www.example.com/" rel="nofollow">keyword </a> site

as opposed to the normal:

Visit my <a href="http://www.example.com/">keyword</a> site.

This ensures that page rank from a credible site is not passed to a non-relevant and often non-credible site. This is a nice feature for those that do not monitor their blog comments, and it prevents spammers from taking the link juice to their site. However, a major problem with nofollow is that website owners try to persuade others to participate and make comments on their blogs. The users that participate frequently and give valuable feedback should be rewarded for their efforts, and rightfully so. That reward should come by way of links to the sites they reference in their comments.

There are tools available in order to remove the Nofollow attribute such as the plugin I found for wordpress. You can set a limit on the amount of comments a person has to leave before dofollow feature kicks in.

The fight against spam will always be around, but hopefully you will find yourself on the winning end. The best thing to do, is to monitor your blog comments and filter them. It’s better for everyone.

It will be interesting to see who the dominating pitchers will be as the season moves on. Granted, who the dominating pitcher is this season doesn’t really have much to do with SEO, but it did get me thinking about what search engines are dominating in the so-called “Search Engine World Series.” So, I started doing a little research. My question: “Who is the top search engine in the top internet-providing markets across the world?”

Here are some things I found in my search for the top search engines (information found from cia.gov):

Number of internet users by country:

1. China: 253 million
2. US: 223 million
3. Japan: 88.1 million
4. India: 88 million
5. Brazil: 50 million
6. Germany: 42.5 million
7. UK: 40.2 million
8. South Korea: 35.5
9. Italy: 35.5 million
10. France: 31.2 million

With so many Internet users across the world, here is a quick look at the top four internet-usage countries to show you who is dominating the search engine market share in those countries.

China: Google takes a back seat to Baidu.com, which has the largest market share. Although some say Google.com.cn is still the best search engine in China, Baidu is still used more. China’s search engines generate approximately 19 billion searches per month.

United States: Google dominates the United States market with 72% share, which is phenomenal. Followed by Yahoo, and then MSN/Live. In terms of search volume, the US searches approximately 12 billion times per month on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

Japan: Yahoo (51% market share) is still the king with over 3 billion searches a month. Google ranks second and in third is www.rakuten.co.jp (2% market share).

India: In the second most populous country, users prefer Google which represents 81% of the market. Yahoo comes in second with 9.4%, followed by Ask (1.9 percent) and MSN (1.7 percent). India’s own Rediff.com ranked fifth with 1.5% market share

More information on search engine market share and volume can be found through comscore.com, HitWise, and Alexa.com.